Phil Luciano: Another Peoria icon hits the road

Thursday

Jul 30, 2009 at 12:01 AMJul 30, 2009 at 2:43 AM

One by one, local institutions slip into our collective nostalgia. Big John's. Hunt's Drive-In. The Madison Theater. V.O.P.'s. And on and on. And the march of time has stomped the life out of another landmark, the Hubcap House. You might remember the business in its most glorious - and eclectic - incarnation: a shimmering edifice festooned with 5,000 wheel covers.

Phil Luciano

One by one, local institutions slip into our collective nostalgia.

Big John's. Hunt's Drive-In. The Madison Theater. V.O.P.'s. And on and on.

And the march of time has stomped the life out of another landmark, the Hubcap House.

You might remember the business in its most glorious - and eclectic - incarnation: a shimmering edifice festooned with 5,000 wheel covers. The place got bulldozed several years ago, though the business survived in other locations.

But now, because of family illness, owner Sandy Innes has been forced to shut down her beloved Hubcap House. She sold her last wares last Saturday.

The offbeat operation culminated a lifelong dream of her husband, Ron Innes. As a kid, he envisioned owning a house covered in hubcaps.

In the late '80s, the couple and a business partner were running a salvage yard in Peoria. One day in 1990, Ron Innes spotted an ancient wooden house go up for sale across the street. He felt a surge of inspiration, and the trio opened a niche business: the Hubcap House.

To catch the attention of speeding passersby, they nailed beat-up hubcaps to every inch of the exterior. The ploy worked: They got attention not only from local media, but travelogues and even National Geographic. The Peoria-based rock outfit Mudvayne even featured the place in a music video.

Not everyone appreciated the quirky appearance. The city once complained that the Hubcap House violated an ordinance mandating that no sign cover more than 20 percent of a business. The Hubcap House countered by saying the wheel covers were not a sign but a wall covering, just like aluminum siding. After receiving a petition with more than 1,000 signatures supporting the unconventional exterior, the city decided to leave the Hubcap House alone.

With all this attention, business boomed. So they decided to open another outpost, in North Pekin.

But Ron Innes died in 2004. The workload became too much for just two people. With the North Pekin location going gangbusters, and an adjacent business interested in buying the place to add parking, the Peoria Hubcap House was sold. It was leveled in 2005, with the exterior's wheel covers sold for scrap.

The thing was, the North Pekin site was made of brick. You can't nail thousands of hubcaps onto brick. So just a few wheel covers adorned the exterior of that location.

A couple of years ago, the state widened Illinois Route 29. As part of that project, the Hubcap House was bought and leveled.

Now the sole owner, Sandy Innes set up shop down the road a few miles in Creve Coeur. She wanted to dot the exterior with hubcaps, just as in Peoria, but local officials didn't like the notion.

As Innes recalls, "They said, 'You're not going to put all those hubcaps up, are you?' I said, 'Well, if you want Creve Coeur to get national attention, I could do it.' "

In the end, the city declined her offer, thus preserving Creve Coeur's pristine commercial landscape. Ahem.

Anyway, Innes' relocated business continued to do well, though not with traditional hubcaps.

She sold a lot of center caps - used but in "insurance quality" condition. Center caps for luxury cars can cost more than $100 apiece; Innes' would go for $45.

She also moved a lot of replacement "skins": the chrome-looking plastic covers common to many vehicles nowadays. These were new look-alikes to replace lost or damaged carmaker originals. The difference in price: the real deal go for $75; hers cost $25.

Auto-parts dealers and Wal-Mart stock some skins, but not the variety of the Hubcap House. And though you can buy them online, it's hard to find the exact fit that way, unlike at the Hubcap House.

Innes planned to keep the operation going. But her 86-year-old mother - already facing medial ailments - recently fell and suffered serious injuries. Innes tried to care for her mom and keep the shop running. But as the only employee, and unable to afford help at the business, she found herself often shutting the place down here and there.

"You just can't run a business like that, being open one day and closed the next," she says.

Innes tried to find a buyer. No go.

"Nobody wanted it, the business climate being what it is," she says.

So, Innes decided to shutter the place. She has sold the building to an incoming appliance-repair shop. This week, she has been cleaning out the place, stacking what's left of her inventory.

She can't think of another hubcap-centric operation anywhere close to Peoria. And I can't think of another business that was as uniquely Peorian as the Hubcap House.